Salon post: August 10

[jenett]

Welcome to this week's salon post!


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Topic of the week
It has been a busy week (three medical-related appointments in three days, including today, plus a related errand next Monday.)

Which is a lot more being out than I am used to or like. What are your tricks when you have a lot of that? Food, household, other planning? What do you do to make it easier on yourself?

What I've been up to
All the appointments! A lot of reading about the Wars of the Roses for a project. (Ok, that one uses a fair bit of brain.)


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Comments

[alexseanchai]

omg I am dying. DY. ING.

I hand back apartment keys Aug 24, my flight to PDX is Aug 25, and I am nowhere near ready and I keep OUT OF SPOONS ERROR.

...I'm spending too much money on Lean Cuisines but hey, it keeps me fed, which staves off the out of spoons error. Also, caffeine caffeine caffeine.

[jenett]

Moving is always So Many Things.

[alexseanchai]

TRUTH

[jazzyjj]

You said it. I can remember 14 years ago tomorrow when I moved out of my parents' house into the building where I am today, it was a real pain. But the moving company turned out to be very good, and some of the neighbors living here at the time pitched in as well. I won't say much about my roommate/former neighbor. He was quite moody to start with. Moving to a different apartment wasn't as hard, but still...Kinda glad to be done with it. Fortunately though, the previous tenant in this apartment left behind a kitchen window air-conditioner. But it eventually died and had to be replaced.

[havocthecat]

Moving is no fun! But at least you have a stopgap for being fed, and sometimes you just have to slap on a band-aid for that.

[alexseanchai]

yup :)

[swingandswirl]

As someone who's moved ten times in ten years, five of which were international, you have my sympathies! And permission to eat as many Lean Cuisines as you like sans guilt. Moving takes ALL THE SPOONS.

[alexseanchai]

♥

[havocthecat]

I'm always out more than I like! Well, okay, not true. But I often am out more than I like on weeknights, and cooking takes forever because I like to make things as much from scratch as possible. Which means I don't get time to myself until later.

I do a lot of-- it's not really batch cooking, but I make large pots of stuff and then we eat leftovers until they're gone so I don't have to do that every night.

Household, I try to get rid of a bunch of stuff so I don't have to clean up constantly. Goodwill donate all the things, or read it and if it doesn't have re-readability, release it into the wild somehow.

Problem is that right now I have medical-related stuff to do and I don't want to take the time to get it done. Wah.

[alexseanchai]

"Make enough for a family dinner, eat for days" is a good strategy...that I keep failing to implement. (Context: I'm oldest of five.)

[havocthecat]

I mean, it works for me, but that's me, and even I have my issues on top of having to cook for multiple people's food preferences - though that's me being nice, because they'll have to live with whatever they get.

I've had to learn to scale back because I was making so much that it was going bad before we could eat it all and I have texture issues with thawed food. (Ugh, my sensory issues are SUPER annoying.) I learned to cook from a woman who was on the top end of fourteen kids, so.

I'd make extra and sell it, but the local police tend to come down on people who do that without the proper (and pricey) food safety licensing.

I'd give it away, but I got tired of doing that and then never having anyone reciprocate because almost no one local cooks from scratch or apparently believes in reciprocating food the way I do except friends who live a couple hours away who have schedules that require planning 3-4 months ahead. (Or so they say. When they were "too busy" to plan something with after three or four requests in a row to schedule something , I stopped asking them.)

I used to bring extra food to LARPs that I went to, but people with multiple food allergies would show up and not be able to eat it (she turned out to be able to eat skinless vegetables or boneless skinless meat that was cooked only in certain oils, ultimately), or vegans - and I am both neither vegan nor vegan-friendly in my cooking - and seeing the constant disappointment on their faces was basically a turn-off as I cook to make people happy, not to make people feel excluded. I guess could have made vegan and allergy-friendly food, but also there's only so much time, energy, and money I have and learning an entire new set of recipes for a twice a month event was...not how I want to spend my spoons. Almost no one really wants that gluten-free, dairy-free, nut-free, soy-free, vegan cookie with a side of cashew cream "frosting" or "mint hummus" except the allergy person and the vegan. (Can you tell I still feel bad about it?) So then I stopped bringing food to LARPs. When I had time for LARPs.

[alexseanchai]

I have texture issues with thawed food

...that's a thing?

that's a thing???

(says someone who knows damn well that food texture issues exist...but apparently I thought this one was just me???)

...

*sympathy*

like, it's obvious you love cooking and don't get nearly enough people to appreciate you for this

[jenett]

That is totally a thing, the thawed foods thing. You both are not alone.

(I do not have that particular thing, but I have some related things.)

[havocthecat]

It's not just you! I mean, it's not normal, and I don't talk about it much, but yeah, I have texture issues with food, and a lot of frozen leftovers that have thawed (where the cell walls have burst and everything is mushy especially) are really bad for that.

Me and the kidlet both have texture issues with food. (Mr. Havoc thinks we're weird. Which we are! But Mr. Havoc can deal.) I don't know the kidlet has texture issues with thawed food, because we do not have thawed leftovers in this house. If there's thawed food, it's meat that's thawed once and then cooked and that's about it.

It was nice that when Dad's illness was really rampant, he'd try just about anything that I made for him, even if it wasn't his normal meals and out of his comfort zone, just because it was me making it. Which is pretty abnormal for a dementia patient, but I guess sometimes people are your comfort zone. (I mean, it wasn't nice that Dad had dementia that badly, but it was nice that he could work around it to try something new even when it was that bad because he was comfortable with me or that he was trying for me. You know what I mean.)

[jenett]

I have been so amazingly grateful for my current witchy students, who alternate bringing a mainish meal and an alternate - we shared foods we don't eat and like, and it's been amazing. (They also do dishes.)

Today's was a great salad with steak, pasta, lettuce, and dressing (really simple, but so yummy!) and garlic bread. (And they leave me leftovers!)

My usual cooking for groups is aiming for inclusion in total range of things available, but being really clear that individual dishes may not be for everyone, and that's fine. If everyone has a couple of things they can choose from that are reasonable foods for them, then yay.

(And if it's people bringing things, and the people who have very limited range bring a thing they can eat, then me bringing what I like to bring and also something simple and vegetable, that usually covers a lot of range.)

My big food issue is that if I make things in bulk, they often stop being food for me a couple of days in (my nutritionist suggested trying quinoa bowls for lunch, where I can swap the toppings mid-week, so I'm trying that this week).

[jenett]

And hte medical stuff is so much time, on top of the actual appointments. (I mean, by Sunday night, I will have done about 2.5 hours extra driving, not counting the 'get there a bit early in case of traffic' time and the actual appointment times.